Re: [Denemo-devel] Denemo-Lyrics

[Richard Shann]

On Thu, 2017-02-09 at 10:22 +0000, Joe Wilkinson wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> 
> I have re-edited this (it takes time before my eyes no longer skip
> over the typos etc)
> 
> I don't know what to say about the menu items that cover Aligning
> Notes and Lyrics. 
> If it were me I would scrub both the Lyric tie and Melismata buttons
> and put in a Help button

The bulk of users of Denemo do not progress to LilyPond, the moment they
are faced with more than two or three technical words they turn off (I'm
not intending to insult anyone here! This observation is borne of real
experiences repeated so often that I have had to accept that we are not
all using the same equipment installed in our heads to make our way in
the world). While it's ok to provide information for those who will read
it, what is essential is to provide enough buttons that people can do
the basic music typesetting operations.


>  that popped up something like the text in here under Aligning Text
> and Lyrics, for the following reasons: 
> 
> 
>      1. There are many alternative options, only some of which could
>         be coped with using Buttons.

worse, some, like beaming, cannot be supported in the Denemo display. So
these are strictly for people who can get to grips with the idea of
"syntax", and won't just give up when the display underlays wrongly with
manually beamed notes.


>      1. Strictly speaking ed - - it - - ing poly - - syll - - ab - -
>         ic text, though under Melismata isn't a Melisma,  "a group of
>         notes sung to one syllable of text."

I don't understand: I just pasted that text into a verse and the
syllable "ed" was assigned to the first three notes, caused by the
following - -
I take it that Melisma is the right name for this "-" syntax, but if not
what is? That is, LilyPond and the Denemo Display both understand this -
what is it called?


>         And there are other ways of creating Melismata which a simple
>         button can't cope with.
>      4. While inputting text from the keyboard it is MUCH easier to
>         type word<space><hyphen><hyphen><space> (for example) than
>         <type: word> Make 4 presses with the mouse <type: Word> ( IMHO
>         )

Absolutely it is, but there are many, many people who will not type
syntax in, they will use a button. There is a further class of people
who will come to typesetting some verses and find a menu item, click on
it and thereby learn the syntax needed, and continue entering further
cases by typing (in the case of lyrics, I come into that category - I
remember that - and -- and _ and __ and "" and {} all do things, but I
use it so rarely that I don't remember what they do).


>      1. Editing already input text is also easier, not to mention the
>         need to delete spaces between words when inserting LyricTies.

The danger of trying to repeat or re-word the LilyPond documentation is
that we may get it wrong, or if the original documentation is wrong and
we copy it our copy won't be updated when they correct theirs, or
introduce something new, alter something ... On the other hand a less
technical description could be useful to someone who would simply shiver
and turn away from the actual LilyPond documentation of lyrics. So I was
thinking to put that on the denemo.org/Tutorials page.

What I'm hoping for is that the labels and tooltips of the menu items in
the Lyrics menu can be checked (and the subsequent options) by you guys
and corrections given as needed. And menu items suggested for any other
obvious syntax that can be inserted without perplexing the non-technical
user.
> 
> Best wishes. I am impressed with your work-rate! Denemo is an
> excellent tool.

And I'm truly grateful for all your efforts to improve Denemo, if only
1% of the folk that use Denemo would explain the problems they hit the
program would develop much more quickly.

Richard